The Beast: A tale that defies belief.

About 16 years ago, I had taken my three sons on our annual “Boyz Daze Out” trip. Three days of summertime spent either in the mountains, at the beach, or in Mexico just my three sons and I. This particular year it was San Diego. My youngest son was about eight years old at the time. Little did I know what we were in for.

We checked into our hotel (I call it “urban camping”) and then we hit the pool. Returning to the room, I got on the phone to order some pizzas to go with our movie rental. That’s when I noticed my youngest son had spent about twenty minutes in the bathroom, and the toilet kept flushing.

Finally he came out with a stunned look on his face. He turned to his older brothers and said, “Hey, you guys gotta see this! We might need the manager.” I stayed on the phone only to hear screams and watch my other two sons come running out of the bathroom, scared outta their minds. “Poppa! It’s… it’s HUGE!“, they shouted in a chorus of disbelief.

My youngest one came out and asked me, “What we gonna do?“

I went in there figuring a few good flushes ought to take care of this. My heart stopped as I looked down upon the LARGEST, LONGEST, THICKEST single brown-boa bowl-snake I have ever seen at that point in my life — or any time since then! Mind you, my son was only about eighty-five pounds at the time. This creature looking up at us was as big as his arm and begging us to give it a name. It was one solid turd, too big to fit in the bowl without bending — but it wouldn’t break. It was like semi-hard adobe clay. I flushed. It barely wiggled a little bit, and then just looked back up at us defiantly. A hundred flushes weren’t going to take this beast down.

“No one’s going to believe this...” one son said from the safety of the main room.

“What the hell did you eat?” my oldest son asked.

Finally I turned to my youngest son and said, “I know what to do.”

I went to my suitcase and got out the plastic bag I’d planned to use for my dirty laundry. I felt sorry for what lay ahead for this poor plastic bag. I handed it to my youngest son and started to explain, “What you gotta do is--“

“ME!??” he cried out.

“Yes, you brought this thing out into the open… you gotta kill it.” I continued. “You gotta put this bag over your hand, like a glove. Then reach down there and pinch it dead into about three pieces. Then flush him out to the ocean where he belongs.”

“But Poppa…!” he whimpered in disbelief.

“Oh, and don’t forget to wash your hands when you’re done.”

The rest of us waited quietly in the other room while we listened to the bag being rustled around. There was a brief moment of silence. And then screaming began. “AAAaaaaggggghhh! It’s… it’s… aaaaagggghhhh!!“

We heard three flushes, and then he came out with a proud, beaming smile on his face. “YEP… it’s gone, alright!“

To this day, my sons remember that eye-opening spectacle of horror. They’ll be telling that tale around the campfire for generations to come. My youngest son went on to do his infamous “all yellow-food”, “all-corn” and “all-Skittles” diets just to see what would come out the other end.

Some days I wonder if that beast is really dead — or if it is snaking its way across the Pacific to scare some poor Asian girl at the beach one day.